Mechanical Engineering professor Ann Spence is coordinating the Maryland LEGO Robotics Tournament which will be held this Saturday in the UMBC University Center Ballroom.

More than 500 middle-school youth and their families are expected to participate in the FIRST LEGO League State Tournament, a competition that builds studentsâ€™ ability to design and program LEGO robots, on Saturday, Jan. 20 from 9:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. (source)

The FIRST LEGO League is an international robotics program intended to encourage enthusiasm for discovery, science, and technology in kids ages 9 to 14. This year, teams will build LEGO robots to perform functions such as removing “pizza molecules” from a paper plate. Judges will evaluate the teams on their ability to program robots to achieve tasks relevant to nanotechnology, a scientific frontier focused on achieving advances in medicine and computers through research into particles 100,000 times smaller than the thickness of a single strand of hair.